He stared blankly ahead.

This future had turned out to be so very different from the life they had spoken of together.

A—

From the corner of his eye, Val caught a flash of movement.

What the hell? It’d been a flicker of light and movement so quick and so brief that for a moment he thought he’d imagined it.

He thought it was a flash of sun, attempting to peek through the heavy cloud cover overhead.

And then he spied her.

More specifically, he detected the curl of fingers along the bottom of the stone windowsill, as the lady ran the length of his townhouse, peering briefly into each window she could reach before she moved on to the next.

Val remained completely unnoticed by the oblivious prier.

The prier who spoke to herself, less than quietly at that, as she conducted her even less than stealthy search of his home.

A growl worked its way up his chest.

He tolerated their staring.

He tolerated their whispering and gossip.

But he’d be damned if he put up with their invading his privacy and looking directly in his windows.

The lady reached the end, and then with her hands on her hips, she backed away. “No servants . . .” That whispering came quiet as the young lady rubbed her gloved hands together briskly.

He folded his arms at his chest. “Can I help you?”

With a shriek, the young woman spun, her foot catching a slick patch of ice, and she went flying up, and then came down in what could only be a hard fall.

She landed with a quiet groan.

There’d been a time when he would have raced ahead and helped her to her feet.

He’d neither the energy nor interest in playing the role of gentleman in Polite Society—or for society on the whole, ever again.

“Only if you know what to do with bothersome brothers and sisters and parents,” the lady muttered.

He didn’t. His father was dead. His mother knew better than to come around. He’d no sisters. A brother whom, but for an occasional exchange when he came by at Christmastide, he’d otherwise not spoken to in several years. “I don’t.”

“That is unfortunate, because I certainly don’t know what to do with them. Marbles.” She muttered that last word under her breath, giving her head a shake.

And if he’d been one to lean toward the curious, he’d have asked what in tarnation she meant by the word “marbles.”

But he wasn’t so curious as to be asking eager questions.

The only thing he was eager to do was be rid of her.

Collecting Lady’s reins, he started for the stables.

“Are you the Duke of Aragon?”